The Banned

The Banned 1970's! The Banned Now! Paul Ben Jon
	The late 1970s saw many unlikely names appear in the charts - but if any group could claim to have the snappiest name in punk, then maybe it was The Banned. While the Sex Pistols signed with (and were summarily thrown off) EMI, The Banned infiltrated its Harvest subsidiary, home of Pink Floyd, Roy Harper and Barclay James Harvest. Sadly, as far as is known, none of these rock behemoths wrote protest letters! For drummer Paul Aitken, The Banned was the latest stop on a musical voyage that had already taken him from South London to Denmark, and which still continues to this day in long-running combo the Retros. The unlikely catalyst for punk fame was a folk-rock outfit called Gryphon, who had school-buddy connections with Aitken's early band Ram.

When they split he joined Precious Little with Gryphon's ex-guitarist and bass player Graeme Taylor and Malcolm Bennett and on second guitar Ben Grove. Two of the first tracks they recorded were - the Young Rascals' 'Good Lovin', played Grateful Dead-style, and the Stones' 'Come On', stem from 1976 club dates in Copenhagen when they came under the influence of The Only Ones lead guitarist John Perry who had a spell filling in for Graeme who was in hospital.
The eclectic Perry "opened up an exciting idea of living on the edge, playing live whatever came into your head. He brought the band a whole bunch of new songs - a lot of soul and angry stuff - which we used to thrash out like they were punk songs, playing from eight at night to four in the morning for six nights a week."

In 1977 the driving force of Gryphon, Richard Harvey, got Paul his entree into the session / jingles scene.
After a session backing Radio 1's Emperor Rosko on some rock 'n' roll oldies, Gryphon's A&R manager at Harvest asked the assembled musicians to cover 'Little Girl', a song by West Coast garage band Syndicate of Sound which had reached Number 8 in the States in 1966 but did nothing in Britain.

On record, The Banned was Rick Mansworth (Richard Harvey), John Thomas (Jon Davie) Paul Sordid (Paul Aitken) and Pete Fresh (Pete Airey). By the time of the obligatory Top Of The Pops appearance Jim Hughes, a teenage rehearsal-room assistant, had become bass player, Paul's college friend Dave 'Sugar' Smith also joining Aitken and Airey in place of their less 'credible' predecessors.

When Smith bailed out, citing domestic difficulties, Ben Grove from Precious Little was first on the list as replacement. He joined The Banned to promote their release with a series of gigs at London venues including the Nashville and the Hope & Anchor.

A cover of another great 'unknown' 1960s' track 'Him Or Me', originally waxed by Paul Revere, had made it into the Top 100 as The Banned's second single when EMI withdrew it, thanks to management hassles. Further tracks 'Banned On The Run', 'Girls Eyes' and 'Alibi' were recorded in 1980-81.

An unreleased third Banned single 'Give It To Me Now' also features here, and was recorded in true punk fashion on an eight-track recorder in Kingston by Aitken, Graeme Taylor and Malcolm Bennett, both ex-Gryphon members who had been in Precious Little back in Copenhagen.
The self-same trio also did 'Clean Living Boy' and it was released as a Precious Little single on Aitken's own Rock On Records. We finish with two Retros tracks to bring the story up to date. "It ties in the loop of the writing of 'You Dirty Rat' and all those others," Aitken explains, "because 'Sad Eyed Zombie' is a track that Dave (Smith) and I wrote soon after The Banned. When we did a lot of music for BBC’s Take Hart and the theme song for Captain Zep! Grove and Aitken have continued to work together since in The Retros and recorded Banned tracks including 'Bad Dreams', 'You Dirty Rat' and 'Sad Eyed Zombie'.
Michael Heatley